On April 25, 2007, agents raided the Surry County, Virginia home owned by Michael Vick, NFL’s Atlanta Falcons quarterback. The authorities reportedly discovered 66 dogs, 55 of them being pit bulls, blood stained carpet, a dog fighting pit, and equipment which is commonly used in dog fighting rings such as dog treadmills and scales, a pry bar used to open a dog’s mouth and an instrument used for breeding. At the time of the raid, Vick was not present at his home but denied having knowledge of dog fighting taking place on his property.
On July 17, 2007, a federal jury indicted Vick as well as three other men, Purnell Peace, Quanis Phillips, and Tony Taylor on charges of competitive dog fighting, procuring and training pits to fight, operating an unlawful interstate dog fighting business by the name of Bad Newz Kennels. The four codefendants each face $350, 000 in fines and six years in prison if convicted of the federal charges. According to reports, Michael Vick had been staging dog fights since his rookie year with the Falcons in 2001.
The dogs found on the property were treated in a horrific manner. Losing dogs were either killed in the arena during the fight or at times they were later hung, electrocuted, shot or drowned. As part of their training to get them ready for fights the dogs were sometimes starved to make them hungry for the fight. On August 24, 2007 Vick entered a plea deal where he pled guilty to “ conspiracy in a dog fighting ring and agreeing that the enterprise included killing pit bulls and gambling. He denied making side bets on the fights, but admitted to bankrolling them. (ESPN) He also admitted to sharing the proceeds from the dog fights with his Peace, Phillips, and Taylor but states that he never placed any bets or collected prizemoneyfor the fights. Vick was the last of his counterparts to enter into a plea deal with the prosecution. On December 10, 2007 Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in prison and three years’ probation at U. S. District Court in Richmond by Judge E. Henry Hudson for running a dog fighting operation. He will serve a longer sentence than two of his codefendants because he lied about his involvement upon ntering his plea agreement when he was supposed to be admitting to his wrong doing and acceptingresponsibilityfor his actions. According to his codefendants, Vick was more involved in the dog fights than he admitted to being. On November 30, Peace and Phillips were sentenced by Judge Hudson to 18 and 21 months in federal prison. Their punishments also included three years of supervised probation following their release from prison. On December 14, 2007, Tony Taylor, who was the first of the four men to plead guilty, received a lesser sentence of 60 days in jail because he agreed to testify against Vick.
Michael Vick was released from prison on July 20, 2009. After his release from prison, Michael Vick is to start his three year probation term. As part of his probation, Vick was equipped with an electronic monitor and had to perform $10-an-hour job as a laborer for a construction company. Michael Vick is currently still on probation but he is now able to play football again and no longer has to work the construction job. Works Cited http://sports. espn. go. com/nfl/news/story? id= 2989824 http://articles. cnn. com/2007-07-17/us/vick_1_bad-newz-kennels-dogfighting-investigation-quanis-phillips? _s= PM: US
